What Would Fishbones Do?
by Gazooki
Summary: In the aftermath of another explosive crime in Piltover, Jinx decides she'd be better off without her rocket launcher, Fishbones. But she never anticipated that without her favourite gun by her side, her view of the world would begin to change... (One-shot)


**What Would Fishbones Do?**

"Hey, Fishbones, whaddaya reckon we should do now?" Jinx asked her weapon of choice as she sat amongst the rubble of a house that once belonged to the famed, gifted, and in her eyes at least, utterly insufferable, explorer known as Ezrael. Countless artefacts from across Valoran lay strewn among the wreckage, many in a totally irreparable state due to the fact they'd just been caught in a large explosion. Jinx rationalised her decision to destroy the dwelling of the dweeb, along with countless relics the likes of which would never be seen again, by reasoning that Ezrael spent so long away from home, he'd probably never notice his house was gone.

Jinx was the sole reason that Piltover had not known peace in recent years, an irreconcilable fact to both the denizens of the city and the extremely frustrated detectives constantly on her tail. If the peace had been disrupted by Zaun getting too uppity, Noxus releasing some sort of vile plague or even the fell beasts of the Shadow Isles migrating en masse, people would have been able to comprehend the madness and adjust their lives accordingly. Alas, nobody could understand Jinx or the methods behind her madness. Only Jinx herself had that knowledge, as much as she would deny it, even from herself.

"Well, for one thing, we ought to clean up all this mess _,_ " said her rocket launcher, Fishbones, in an oddly jovial tone considering he was chastising her."I doubt Ezrael will be happy to come home and find his house has been destroyed." Jinx and Fishbones often argued wth each other in the aftermath of a giant explosion. That was the perfect time for it because chances were small that anyone else would be around to hear them, and if anyone _was_ around, they'd be too busy screaming in agony or clutching desperately at the sides of their heads to stop the ringing in their ears to notice her arguing with a weapon shaped like a giant metallic shark.

"Never!" she yelled, punching her beloved rocket launcher in the snout, dimly aware of the flash of pain coursing through her fist as it clanged against Fishbones' tough steel coating. "Cleaning's for _losers,_ like Fat Hands!You better not be calling me a loser or you'll suffer the same fate as Shiny Boy's stash here!" It was odd that she should be concerned about being overheard, she knew, but then again, so was everything else about her. She was crazy and she had a doctor's note to prove it. Well, she liked to call it a doctor's note but it was actually just a sheet of paper with the words 'Jinx is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy!' written on it sloppily. Nonetheless, she used this as evidence to justify to herself the chaos and destruction she left in her wake. Surely it had to be a watertight defence? 'Oh, sorry, Hat Lady, I just couldn't help levelling half the city because I'm crazy!'

"Why Jinx, that's an awful, mean spirited thing to say _,_ " replied Fishbones. _"_ How could you make such a threat to one of your oldest pals, huh?"

"I think you'll find I could do it very easily," said Jinx, giving Fishbones a good shake in the hope that he'd shut up.

"Is that so? Is that how little you think of me? Am I so disposable that I can simply be cast aside and replaced like that _?"_ asked Fishbones.

"Sure," Jinx said, dropping the weapon and watching it roll down the mound of rubble she was sat on. Thunk, thud, whack, and other glorious sounds commonly associated with metal colliding with stone rang through the air as poor Fishbones rolled all the way to the ground. "There, I just did it! Well, the first part!" Like a child having a tantrum, she turned her back on the rocket launcher, folding her arms across her chest and pouting. Nobody was allowed to ruin her fun, especially not Fishbones. If anything, he was the one who was supposed to make fun happen with his many rockets. Beautiful, amazing, wonderful rockets. Rockets that made explosions that filled the air with noise and smoke and fire. Rockets that sent people running for miles and screaming. Rockets that could level a building in seconds, toppling skyscrapers like dominoes as she watched from a safe distance on a rooftop, or if she was feeling incredibly daring, on the streets in plain sight. Once she got going, it was impossible to stop her momentum.

"Rockets," Jinx whispered to herself. Rockets were the key to everything, she realised. Rockets were the glue that held her life together, and the reverse glue that caused Piltover to become unstuck. Maybe she should go to the patent office and get that trademarked. 'Rockets: the best reverse glue in Runeterra!' Of course, the moment her patent was approved she'd have to blow up the patent office so nobody could try to steal her secrets. Well actually more because it'd be fun to watch the place get blown to smithereens. To do that, she realised, she'd need something to propel the rockets with. She once tried to throw a rocket, but it didn't go very far and it certainly didn't explode. Chompers were like mini-rockets, she supposed, but they weren't nearly as fun as a Super Mega Death Rocket.

"Rockets," Jinx said, louder than before. No. Rockets weren't the answer, she realised. Fishbones was. Fishbones was nice. Fishbones, as far as she had been concerned, was _real_. But as she stood atop the rubble, arms covering her small chest as her blue pigtails blew in the light breeze, she noticed that the silly voice of Fishbones was no longer responding. Fishbones never spoke unless spoken to, that much she knew. Maybe he was a bit shy. But no, there was more to it than that, she began to realise.

Many a time, the two had disagreed with one another. Fishbones often urged Jinx to become a law-abiding citizen, pay her bills, go to school, hand herself in to Hat Lady and Fat Hands, think about how much inconvenience she'd cause to others with her reckless behaviour. _Those poor people have done nothing wrong,_ he'd say, to which Jinx would reply she didn't care, she just wanted to have fun and do cool stuff, and it didn't matter to her who got caught up in it. Their lives weren't important because they weren't her, or Hat Lady, or Fat Hands, or that dark-skinned time travelling kid with the wrench she'd run into that time. But… those people built the city. Those people were the ones who gave her this massive playground to roam and destroy. It wasn't that she _wanted_ to even kill them in the first place, they just happened to get in the way.

"Wait a second… Fishbones!" she screamed, turning herself around at breakneck speed and leaping acrobatically off the rubble to land squarely beside the discard, battered, but still fairly usable, rocket launcher. She stared at Fishbones for a while, watching his sharp, toothy mouth for any signs of movement. In spite of everything she'd put him through and their constant disagreements, he'd been loyal and stayed by her side ever since she could remember. If he didn't _like_ blowing stuff up, then why would he do it? Because he loved her. Because they were best buds. Because he… wasn't… moving? Was he dead?

"Fishbones?" Jinx asked quietly, crouching down to the level of her weapon and stroking his head delicately, staring deep into his glowing orange eyes. "Wake up, Fishbones!" She took the weapon in her hands and shook it vigorously, the metal jaws clanking and rattling with the vibrations. As she looked up and spotted this movement, a tiny little spark went off inside her brain. Now she began to think maybe there was a reason he only picked those moments to talk. He wasn't magic. He wasn't a special talking weapon. He was just a regular old weapon she'd grown attached to over the years. Every time they'd had an argument and fallen out, it was when he was strapped to her arm, never when he was resting on the floor or the table or propped up against the wall in her secret base. All this time, when he went quiet after being punched in the nose, she'd thought he was just giving her the silent treatment. Now, she realised, maybe that wasn't true.

"Wait… am I… _Fishbones?_ " she asked herself, her voice slipping momentarily into Fishbones'. But then that meant all this time, when her rocket launcher was trying to tell her she shouldn't be so reckless, she should try to settle down and live a normal life like everybody else… that had been her. Even as she rampaged across Piltover demolishing everything she could, that little voice inside her head had been trying to get through to her. What was it they called it? The conch? Yeah, that was it, the conch! Her conch had been drowned out by all the noise, all the bright colours, by the rush she got whenever her rockets nailed their target. That felt so magical, that moment when all her hard work and preparation had paid off. But… was there another way to get that rush?

Jinx sat on the floor, clutching Fishbones lovingly in her arms as she began to contemplate this. She lived for the thrill of blowing stuff up. She totally got off on destruction. That much, she knew. That was the only reason she did it, because it felt _so good._ But what if there were things that felt just as good as that, if not better, that were safer? Before, she would have instantly dismissed this thought because she would have been saying it in a silly voice and flapping Fishbones' jaws like a puppet, but now she was facing the terrifying reality that this was inside her head and there was no escape. She couldn't just punch her brain in the face and yell at it to shut up. She had to face the reality that a part of her, no matter how small it was, knew she was in the wrong, and getting rid of Fishbones wouldn't make that feeling go away.

"What is life if not explosions?" Jinx slurred, slumped backwards against what remained of a large stone statue of King Jarvan the First. Reintegrating herself into society in Piltover was impossible now. She couldn't do it. Not because she was scared of what people would think of her. No way. She didn't give a shit about that. People could say what they wanted about her. She didn't care if people thought that she was a blue-haired freak, or she had a terrifying grin, or she had tiny boobs. That was all part of the Jinx image, and she felt just fine with that. Nope, what really mattered was that she couldn't have a normal life as long as Fat Hands and Hat Lady were still around. If they caught her, they'd make her answer for all her crimes.

Again, before realising that Fishbones was just a gun, she would have been unfazed by having to repay her debts to society. _Let other people fix my mess. They've done it every other time. That's what other people exist for, right?_ No, that wasn't what scared her. Money, clothes and other material goods didn't matter to Jinx. Her outfit was pretty much just the bare minimum she could get away with without being totally naked, supplemented by lots and lots of functionless belts, and the only things she kept in her underground base were weapons. She had nothing to lose in that respect. What she _did_ have to lose was her freedom. The freedom to do whatever she wanted. Jinx admitted she didn't know a lot, but what she did know was that if she got arrested she'd be locked up forever for a list of crimes so long it hardly fit on the Wanted posters.

"Now what do I do?" Jinx asked herself sadly, now fully aware she was only asking herself and not her guns. Now, the awareness that her sanity had slipped was hitting with full force. She didn't know why she was this way. She just was. She couldn't help it. She had that destructive streak within her as long as she could remember and she'd get all itchy and irritated when something hadn't exploded for a good while. One time she went a whole day without blowing stuff up, just to see if she could, and by the end of it she was sitting in a dumpster, holding her knees and rocking back and forth not knowing what to do with herself until she dislodged a Chomper and set a pile of rags on fire by accident. That was all she'd known up to this point. Endless destruction, endless despair. The only way to soothe herself was to blow things up. But could she keep going on this way?

"People…" People were like bugs. No matter how many you squished, more always came back. But if Jinx got squished, would she come back? How many people had she killed? Jinx didn't know. There were probably too many to count. She liked people, and didn't actively wish death upon them, but nor did it matter to her if a few went missing. But now, it suddenly did, because she was Fishbones, and Fishbones never liked it when people died. He always cried afterwards, all big sobs and loud 'BOOOOO-HOOOOO' noises. Just like that one time she saw Fat Hands crouching by that kid she'd pulled from the wreckage of a building. Jinx didn't understand it at the time, but obviously Fat Hands didn't like seeing people die, and what with her being part of the police, that meant killing people was wrong. Well, of course killing was wrong, Fishbones had said as much many times, but now replaying that incident over in her head, Jinx finally started to see what he meant. In a way it was like what had just happened to Fishbones. One moment, he was moving and talking, the next he was lying in the rubble, no longer capable of moving. Because he was dead. Because _she_ had killed him. Except Fishbones had never been alive to begin with, because Fishbones was really her. It was all such a mess, she couldn't take it any longer.

"Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it STOP IT!" she shouted, throwing Fishbones to the ground and beating what had once been Ezrael's living room floor with her fists. She was more aware of the pain than she had ever been in her life. The pain that she'd caused others. The pain she was currently causing to herself. The pain she'd feel when Hat Lady finally managed to snipe her, or when Fat Hands finally got those big metal mitts on her. Jinx didn't want any of this. She just wanted it all to go away. She didn't want to _die,_ but she did want the pain to stop. She looked down at her left hand, all quivery and covered in blood. Her blood. Her right hand wasn't in much better condition.

"Why?" Jinx whispered softly, feeling a new sensation, of wetness collecting in her eyes and dripping down her cheeks, splashing onto the floor and mixing with her blood to form a pool of pure misery. She was crying. She didn't remember ever crying before, only seeing other people cry. She didn't like how it felt. Not only were her eyes dripping, her nose was running, a film of mucus joining the disgusting pool on the floor, and it felt like something was trying to claw its way out of her throat. Many times she'd witnessed this happening to others, and she had the awareness to make Fishbones mimic this reaction, but until now, she'd never felt it herself. She never wanted to again, either, but now she knew chances were she probably would. With the revelation that Fishbones wasn't real, the world had begun to open up, and the world turned out to be a scary place to live. "Why couldn't you be real, Fishbones?"

"Oh… but I am!" she tried to say in the silly voice she had often used, but it was interrupted by sobs and it sounded wrong and distorted.

"No, you aren't," she whispered back. "I can't fool myself anymore. I can't keep running away from my problems, cos they're always gonna follow me. Even if I leave Piltover, people will know my name, my face. My life's over and it's my fault. I can't go on like this…" For a long time, Jinx sat there, allowing her depression to run its course, dissecting every moment of her existence in the fruitless search for an all-encompassing answer to her dilemma. Where did she come from? Where was she going? What was, and what will be? The answer was clear. She couldn't go back to the way she had been, but nor could she forfeit her freedom, because to do so would go against everything she had ever lived for and no matter what, she couldn't betray herself. She knew she'd be miserable locked up and wanted to do whatever it took to ensure that never happened, but it looked like there was only one choice. To keep running.

"Suppose I'd better scram before those two show up," she said as she weakly rose to her feet, stumbling over the pile of blood, tears and snot in search of something to clean herself up with. Thankfully, not far from her lay an old tablecloth that she was able to use to mop most of the mess up with, which she cast onto the rubble once she was done with it. Spotting poor Fishbones lying prone on the ground, his jaw hanging open like the gormless fish that he was, she felt another pang of sadness, knowing now that her relationship with the gun would never be the same. Fishbones was dead, but his legacy could live on. She slammed the dopey fish's jaw shut and dragged the tablecloth down from the rubble with the intention of covering him up, just like everyone did with her victims.

"So long, old buddy," she said to the gun, planting a kiss on his wonky, beaten snout before covering his face with the bloody tablecloth. "I'll make you proud. Just you watch." It was going to be a long road ahead, that much Jinx knew. Letting go of Fishbones was just the first step. She'd never forget him and everything he did for her, but she also had to remember that it was never _him_ doing all that in the first place. It had always been her. She'd been the one willing herself to change all along, and now she had to commit to that. She was scared, no doubt about that, but in a way she didn't really mind. It was all so exciting, thinking of all the new possibilities that might open up to her if she could flee far enough.

Maybe she could join the army and fight on the front lines, put her destructive tendencies to good use for once. Perhaps she could bring her knowledge of hextech accrued from years living in one of the most advanced cities in Runeterra and help one of the smaller nations advance into the modern age. Just imagine what the Freljord would be capable of if they had guns! They were scary enough when they had their big axes swinging at you, but just imagine all those big burly men trudging through the snow with rocket launchers! That'd be enough to make any warrior soil his armour. What if, instead of blowing things up, she started fixing them instead? If she could find that kid with the wrench again, maybe he could teach her some stuff. As she walked away from the bomb site that used to be Ezrael's house, Jinx finally started feeling that rush again, the same one that she'd got before from destroying things. She allowed the sensation to fill her body, picking up the pace, until soon she was miles away from the devastation she'd caused. People stopped and stared as she ran past them, and she was pretty sure at one point she heard Fat Hands yelling, but none of that mattered. Jinx felt freer than she'd ever been, and she couldn't wait to see what the future held for her.

 **A.N.: Yes, I did just write an entire fic based off Jinx's jokes. Managed to write this one in about four hours. If you know me at all, you'll know that's insanely rare. A lot of this I was able to draw from myself and my own experiences with realisations about my own personality, so quite a lot of emotion went into writing this.**

 **If any of you came here from my other fic, Danganronpa Clinic of Despair, don't worry, that's still ongoing. If not, how 'bout checking it out? :P**


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